Chris Sloan

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers,
Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, and Chris Sloan catch up with two other
National Writing Project teachers, Bud Hunt and Gail Desler.

First we talk to Bud about his conversation at this year EduCon 2.3.
We encourage you to follow the links at the bottom of this description
from the EduCon site (I hope we did our "linktrubition" correctly here!):

Dr. Remix; or how I learned to stop worrying and love citationBrowse recordings:livestream.com/educon8Who: Bud Hunt, St. Vrain Valley School District (CO) and Joe Bires, Haddonfield School District (NJ)Conversation Description:
This presentation is an extension of a Twitter conversation in
response to a keynote presentation at ISTE 2010. One presenter felt that
he was witnessing an act of plagiarism, while the other felt he was
seeing remix in action. Their constructive disagreement is worth
further exploration.
Clearly, there are many differing views on the role of proper use of the
work of others. What is the place of citation in the work we are doing
with students and others? When should you cite? How? What does a
digital citation, or "linktribution" as Alan Levine calls it, look like
online?
Perhaps you never thought about it or perhaps you never considered
the issue in its totality. This discussion will raise your awareness of
this issue that fundamentally affects us because ideas are at the core
of all of our curricula. Through citation, we ask students to connect
ideas together and create new ones, but the issue of citation masks the
fundamental question of the relationship between ideas and their
creators.
Websites: http://www.budtheteacher.com - http://edtechleadership.com - http://bit.ly/drremix

Next up in the podcast, Gail Desler brings us up to date on here work
as a technology integrator in the Elk Grove (CA) Unified School
District. Among other things, Gail describes why she loves Audacity so
much, and here's some of how she puts it in her wonderful Edublog, BlogWalker:

The appeal of Audacity to students is that they can edit all or just parts of a recording. For the past few months, I’ve had the privilege of observing Teresa Cheung’s
4th graders delve into Audacity to edit their Stories from Heart audio
interviews. Once students see how easy it is to zoom in and delete an
“er” or “um,” or shorten a pause, or amplify a section that’s too low,
or remove background noise, etc., they become active sound editors. I
love watching the confidence level of ELLs grow, as they relax, knowing
how easy it is to redo words or even a single word until they’re
satisfied with the output.
But more importantly, as Teresa’s students listen, for instance, to Chase’s mother explain how she came to be born by a waterfall, or Devina’s grandmother talk about growing up in Berkeley in the ’50s, or Anthony’s mother
talk about her childhood days escaping Laos, the students take pride
in sharing and preserving family stories, cultures, and languages. As
the collection builds, so does the celebration of common threads and
diversity in Ms. Cheung’s classroom, along with an appreciation for the
power of the human voice.

Finally, Paul, Chris, and Susan mull over some of the changes they are planning for Youth Voices.
Within days of this post, Bill Fitzgerald and the other "primates" over
at FunnyMonkey will have finished a re-launch of Youth Voices on their
new Voice Box installation.

The VoiceBox installation profile is designed to
simplify the work of groups looking to create or expand their online
presence. Groups who could use this site range from media organizations
to not-for-profits to schools to advocacy groups. If an organization
wants to build a place for their stakeholders to publish, interact, and
get more informed, then VoiceBox could support that work.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

Skype is trying something new, and we wanted to find out what it’s
all about. Do you use Skype in your classroom—or have considered it? Then you might enjoy this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers.

We were intrigued when we saw “Skype in the classroom: A free directory that connects teachers and helps them use Skype to enrich students’ educational experience.”

When we saw that George Mayo was involved, we asked him to come explain
what the project is trying to do. As he explained:

I was one of many teachers Skype talked
with. They are basically trying to set up a network for teachers who are
using, or want to use Skype in their classrooms. The site is still in
Beta I believe. It’s a great idea. I can also talk about how we just
recently used Skype for our documentary project in my middle school
classroom. We were able to Skype in and record about 15 different
experts in different topics for our 18 different documentaries we are
currently making. It would be interesting to hear what other teachers
are doing with Skype.

We were also joined on this podcast by Brianna Reynaud. As the Senior PR Manager for Skype
in the Americas, Ms. Reynaud works “with media, bloggers and other
organizations to spread the word about Skype across the region.” To get a
sense of Brianna, check out a few of her recent twitter posts:

We are delighted to introduce you to Travis Powell on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers. Travis is a member of the Oregon Writing Project, and he teaches at a unique school that he co-founded, the Child’s Way Charter School in Oregon.

We met Travis at a gaming workshop at the National Writing Project’s annual meeting in November and at a NWP Maker workshop.

Here’s what Travis says about his school and his work there:

The charter is in its fifth year of operation. The charter's mission is to create environments that allow the students to explore and discover their strengths and weaknesses in their educational development. We have an emphasis on the implementation of technology. I am a co-founder of the charter and my role was and is the implementation of some of the theories on education put forth by Gardner, Glasser, Dewy, Maslow & Payne ... I serve a low SES population of 24 students ranging in grades from 9th -12th. Each student has a laptop with internet access along with ipad touches on loan form CATE, center for advanced technology in education, out of the University of Oregon.

The ning showcases some of their individual and group projects. In "Problems have Solutions" the students learned what it takes to solve the Cube and then construct a machine to solve the cube. Another project is "Solar Hydrogen" part II.

My goal is to get the students to realize the potential. Be able to read, write, think abstractly (mathematics), apply the scientific method, and communicate effectively at a college level by the time they leave the charter. In tandem, develop a four year plan post high school (two-year, four-year college, vocational, ...) with clear objectives with feedback on accomplishing those steps....

Enjoy!

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

For six years now, we've been publishing, distributing, and discussing student work online at Youth Voices. Recently we've been talking with a group of students who are working collaboratively on producing magazines built out of the content on Youth Voices.

After many years of publishing our [Judge Memorial in Salt Lake City,Utah] high school newspaper locally on newsprint, my students just published their first school “newspaper” on MagCloud: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/128339 We just distributed the issue to the students yesterday, and everybody loves the new format. Just as exciting is the fact that a group of teachers from around the country who I collaborate with are also beginning the process of having our students publish a MagCloud photo magazine created by the digital
photography group at youthvoices.net.

We are delighted that Lauren Bernsen joined us to talk about using MagCloud in K-12 schools.

When the Deepwater Horizon oil well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year, teachers across the country recognized an opportunity to bring real-world applications of math and science into their classrooms. Similarly, the rescue of 33 Chilean miners has triggered student discussions about everything from heroism to human biology.

In the wake of such dramatic events, some teachers are eager to do more than host current-events-style conversations. They want to use the news as a launching pad for in-depth student learning. But making that happen requires teachers and students to dive into topics for which there are no texts or guidebooks. What’s more, maintaining student interest can be challenging once the headlines start to fade and media attention shifts to tomorrow’s hot topic.

How do you plan for academically rigorous projects that are “ripped from the headlines”? Here are a few suggestions, along with some timely resources.

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